Let the Grabby Hands commence!

Tis The Season for Grabby Hands and the I Wantsies!

Welcome to the Christmas Season.... It is the perpetual Grabby Hand and I Wantsies season for children and adults everywhere!  Beginning Friday, the feeding frenzy of crazed shoppers begins for the next entire MONTH!!  Greed is everywhere like salmon during spawning time!  You can't walk 5 feet without a pair of grabby hands and i wants uttered out of mouths of babes and adults alike!  And I get to work the midnight shift on Friday.  Hear the exuberance in my voice?  Yeah, me neither LOL.


This year is the first year that I am gladly announcing... I am NOT participating in the greedy shopping frenzy.  We are so broke it's not even funny.  We are getting a "family gift" of Mario Kart (dont tell the kids) and ONE wheel for the Wii.  Each child shall have a pair of socks, made by me, and each child will get a movie that I purchased before Borders went out of business!  We won't have a tree, we won't have many presents, but hopefully my family will come to appreciate the little things of the celebration instead.  

Like having hot chocolate on a snowy night, with nothing but the Christmas lights and radio on while watching the snow fall.  Like taking a family walk around the neighborhood all bundled up to the nines to look at the neighborhood Christmas lights and decorations.  Like having a family snowball fight just because.


Growing up I don't really remember having lean Christmases.  I remember Barbies and model horses galore.  And lots of clothes.  But this year grandparents can make up the rest of that balance.


This is not saying I do not have grabby hands and "I want"sies.  In fact I do, now more than ever since we can not afford anything beyond food.  I long for a spinning wheel (Sequoia Spinning wheel or Kromski Fantasia), and some wool to spin.  Or a drop spindle to learn on.  I long for a fancy set of knitting needles.  Dyakcraft.com specifically.  I want a bunch of their needles!  Most of all I want my children to be happy.  I don't want them to realize how dire the situation for their Christmas is.  At least with K I can regift some of the yarn I'm not using, but with T, its a lot harder to explain that we can't afford all the presents he wants.


Sometimes being a grown up sucks.  Making ends meet is so much harder than I could have imagined.  And its not a fun road to travel down.

Socky Goodness!

MMMmmmm its time for some socky goodness!

Finally finished D's socks on the 16th.  Yay!  They look good, I like the pattern a lot, after being so unsure starting out.  And now I shall post pictures!  D already knows what the look like, he insisted on wearing them yesterday!  So... I guess it is a Christmas present in November.  Either that, or i'm going to snag them back and wrap them up LOL.  

Both socks done!

Close up view of the pattern

So onwards to another pair of socks!  This time for my mother!  I have this cute hand painted sock yarn that I bought online called "Evil Stepmother".  Its a variegated colorway that goes from a dark purple all the way to a light red-purple shade.  Don't know why, but that color just shouted "MOM" to me... Maybe its because I remember her wearing a lot of purple while I was growing up.  Either way, she's getting a pair of socks out of the whole deal.  If i can finish 1 pair of socks every 2 weeks, I might have Christmas gifts for 4 people!  Yay!  We're so broke right now, that no one is getting bought gifts.  Including the kids, which really stinks for them.  This year I did a horrible job of clearance sale shopping for Christmas.  Oh well.  They should be thankful for a roof over their head and food in their belly.  Which is helping me bust my stash of yarn thankfully.

Alright, of to a parent teacher conference for the kindergartener! 

Discontinued!

No no no, my blog is not discontinued despite what the title claims!

This post is about how all my favorite yarn lines are being discontinued at the same time!  I understand how yarn is related to style, which fluctuates quite often, but I will tell you this, trying to get my hands on some of the colors I have not previously had in certain yarn lines is putting a strain on my budget.  I am now officially on a yarn diet.  I will not be buying any more! I have plenty to work with, now I just need to sell some stuff on Etsy LOL!

A picture of the Imagination sock, and 4 skeins of Stroll sock on top

I have just discovered the yarn line on knit picks of "Imagination Hand Painted Sock" yarn (especially "Fairy Princess, second from left on bottom rows in photo).  It is my inner child's fantasy.  It has such color lines as "Mermaid Lagoon" and "Evil Stepmother" which are absolutely stunning!  My inner child squealed when we received the box of new yarn a few weeks ago.  They are so pretty and soft, and the verigations of color are beautiful!  Only to log on to Ravelry two days ago to discover they are discontinuing a whole lot of the colors I wanted, both in this line and their other hand painted sock "Stroll".  It frustrates me to no end, because it feels like they are doing this on purpose.  Granted, not just for me, but for other customers too.  I haven't been to big on the heavier yarns as of late.  For whatever reason, my hands prefer the smaller gauge yarns, and don't feel so worn out after knitting with sock yarn, as when I am knitting with K on her regular worsted weight yarn, my hands feel tired!  Maybe its also because I use huge aluminum needles that are more slippery than my wooden ones... But they're discontinuing whole lines of worsted weight yarns that I haven't even had the chance of trying!  I can't afford all of this!

In my mind, the conversation between the leaders at KP goes something like this:  

"Look Bob!  We had a big run on Imagination this week"  
"Great Darcy, lets discontinue it so they all scramble to spend a crap ton of money this week!  Who cares how the consumers feel."   
"But Bob, if we do that, then the customers might rebel against us!"  
"Yes, I see your point Darcy.  Lets discontinue some other brands or colors as well.  Maybe they won't think we're out for their money if we say its to bring in new colors and brands for more money!"  
"Gee Bob, you're so smart.  Charge them more for new lines of yarn that are the exact same as the old lines, and convince them the new lines are more 'designer'.  I like how you think Bob... We're going to get huge raises this year!"

*None of the above conversation happened, was over heard, or anything other than an act of my imagination to reason as why they're doing this.

I wound up breaking down and buying MORE yarn because I want those colors!  I like "Frog Prince" and "Pirate King".  I think a whole lot of people (or just me) will be getting lots of socks in the future!  Thank goodness for the Rav group "Sock Knitters Anonymous"... They have a monthly sock knitting challenge.  Maybe I'll challenge myself this year to make 6 pairs of socks...

This act by KP has definitely made me wary of their ways. I think Andrea @ CDA Yarn and Fiber will be getting more of my money soon.  Maybe after I use up a bit of my stash!  This out of control yarn habit I have better get under control soon!  I know in the near future, I will not have so much time to knit as I have in the last few months.  Mostly because the week of Black Friday, I'll be working tons of hours.  (Yay? I think not!)  And the night of Thanksgiving is going to be the roughest I'll ever have had.  I have to be at work at 11:45.  We open at midnight.  I'll be there until 8:15 am.  UUUuuuuuggghhh.  This is when I miss Borders the most.  Because even though we were open at 6 am, we were slow until afternoon.  Everyone was at places like Walmart and Target and Best Buy to get the best deals they could.  Now I work at one of those retailers, and I will have to deal with everyone wanting my help right now! And do I know where xxx product is? NO, I don't work that area of the store! I've only worked on the clothing!  Go find someone in that area to help you!  Bah humbug!


Ok, so my inner scrooge is coming out early.  Sorry about the sneak peek.  May my zen return before I rip a Black Friday shoppers throat out!


And on that positive note, just wanted to say D's socks are about half way done.  Just finishing up the gusset increases/heel flap. Once the heel is turned then its 4-6" for a leg, and I'm done.  Let me tell you what a trial it has been getting to the half way point!  Everything is so busy for me right now!  The kids are all signed up for 4H, our first meeting is in Dec with a group in Dalton Gardens (about 20 min from where we live now, but all the groups around our area didn't have the things K wanted to be involved in.  Better to have a group with 3/4ths the things she wanted to sign up for and be in a satellite group for 1 thing than be in a group with 1 thing she wants, and have to satellite out for 3 others...


Speaking of K and 4H... She signed up for knitting and cat this year, she wants to do crochet, sewing, non-horse, gardening, and something else, but for her 1st year, I figured it was better to under-work her rather than overwork her and her get frustrated.  T was signed up for Cloverbuds too, even tho he said he didn't want to LOL.  Too bad, Mommy makes the decisions here!  Ok, off to take care of the herd!  Everyone have a great weekend!
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Sock it to me!

I have been working hard, or hardly working depending on the stance you're looking from.  I started a new job, just a temporary holiday help, and supposedly only 9 hours a week, but this week I've racked up almost 11, and I have Saturday too!  So I'll be getting almost 15 hours if i get another 4 hours on Saturday.  Putting up Christmas stuff is getting me into the Christmas mood already!

After getting home from work today, I was exhausted!  If I was asked a question, I couldn't answer because I was so tired.  I just became a zombie for a bit.

But that is not why you're Socking it to me!  This is why:

I finished K's pair of socks, with enough yarn to make a second pair!  This is the same pair in different lights.  The one on the cement is outdoors in bright sun, bottom one is sunlight in the house thru a window LOL!  Having finished that pair of socks has allowed me to start a new pair for D for Christmas.  And lucky for him, it is "M(an)(N)ovember" in one of the groups on Ravelry.com Movember.  Man sock November.  Whatever you want to call it.   I have started them yesterday.  Only yesterday?!?! Its hard to believe, but yes, only yesterday, I am working on a pair of toe-up two-at-a-time pair for him.  On Saturday I went to CDA Yarn & Fiber with T and visited Andrea and the pugs Chester and Bugsy to choose out the yarn to use on this project.  I tried to get T's input on the yarn, but he was so busy petting Chester and sitting with him he was no help at all.  He did what his father does "Yes" and "That is good" with out really looking at the choices.  Way to be taught early!

But in the end we took home a couple hanks of Cascade Heritage Sock yarn in the color "Moss".

.That is in the early Sunday morning sun.  As of this very moment, I only have 2 more increase rows before I'm done with the toes and moving on to the foot!  And if I finish this in the next week or two, I may have to start a pair for myself!  OR there is an option to make a second pair for D if there is enough yarn left (which there should be if the legs aren't too long).  Once I finish, I will say what pattern they are, but may not post a picture of the finished product, because this is a present.  Granted K's socks are presents too, but she's not online!  Its great having control over stuff like that.


Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween, and brought in lots of candy!  I know we did.  Optimus prime was a hit!  And to wrap up this blog post, I will post some Optimus pictures!